8 of My Favorite Foods to Help Fight Depression

Hello everyone, welcome back, Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Ramsey. Subscribe so you don't miss any of these videos. This one is really important, especially if you are feeling a little depressed or anxious and are looking for some of the best

foods

.

help

you improve your brain health and mental health. I wanted to go over some of the

foods

that I always talk to patients about, if you don't know, I'm one of the leaders in nutritional psychiatry and that is the use of food and nutrition to optimize brain health and treat and prevent mental health disorders. It's not that nutrition is the only thing you need to do for your mental health.

Mental health is a lot of work, but it has to be something done well. If you don't get the right nutrition for your brain, if you don't get the right nutrition for your mental health, it's a lot harder to feel your best, so let's talk about some of my

favorite

foods because I'm talking to every patient I see about nutrition. and these are the foods that keep coming up for me so number one and this is a challenge but it's sardines or anchovies but I want to talk about sardines sardines are a small oily fish so when people talk about omega - 3 fats and how they are good for the brain and mental health.

I really direct my patients toward these natural sources of omega-3 fats. Sardines also provide a lot of vitamin B12, a complete protein, and are one of the main sources of calcium. it's just what we call a nutrient dense food, now sardines can be tricky, there's a great recipe, I have glenda gnocchi, which is basically a little bit of tomato paste, pine nuts, garlic and shred the sardines a little bit in there really ends up tasteless. very suspicious, put that on some gnocchi, that's a great meal, okay, let's move on to the next one, which is a kefir smoothie.

Kefir is a fermented dairy product and has more bacteria, called colony-forming bacterial units, than any other. I have been able to find other fermented foods and that is why I put kefir in my smoothie. We increasingly know that mental health and gut health are quite linked, and to improve our overall gut health, most people want to eat more and more fermented foods. plants, so this is a great way to get a really solid fermented food. a kefir shake. I make one with a banana, a little fear and cinnamon. I have many recipes in my smoothie cookbooks like eat to beat

depression

and anxiety which has the peanut butter cup smoothie, one of my

favorite

s.

Alright, next up is a great food for your mental health that you should really have in your kitchen and this should be the main fat you cook with. This is a very good quality olive oil. Because? This is because, for many people, the essence of eating for mental health is eating more plants, eating more fiber, and many people have a hard time knowing how to do that, roasting vegetables in the oven or straining vegetables in olive oil is really cool. way to get more of those foods olive oil itself is very, very healthy, it's a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid and in fact, consumption of oleic acid is correlated with a lower risk of

depression

over a 10-year period , so it's a great powerful fat, lots of good antioxidants and, along with some vitamin E, which is a very important vitamin for brain health.

Alright, the next food on my list would be cashews. It is very important to start eating nuts. Many people are afraid of nuts and feel that they are really a high-calorie food, but nuts, first of all, have 25 percent fewer calories than what is listed on the package. The USDA issued a statement a few years ago and also nuts are naturally filling because they are a really nice mix of a little bit of protein. some fat and slow burning carbs and fiber so cashews are great, they have more iron than most other nuts, they have a little bit of natural sweetness and I think it's great to use them as a snack using their fruit mixes dry, add your yogurt. in your smoothies, the next really useful food for you would be dark chocolate.

Now dark chocolate has a reputation for improving our mood and it's actually based on some science or these very powerful phytonutrients and dark chocolate that has been shown in some scientific studies to be high in it. concentrations to

help

with age-related memory decline you also have to keep in mind that the dark chocolate itself and we are talking about solid dark chocolate so we don't want it with a lot of chocolates or caramel filling, we are looking for a bar of solid dark chocolate over 70 percent cocoa, a nice dark chocolate, you also get iron, fiber, magnesium, so again it's a nutrient rich food, it's a great way to make sure there's sweetness in your life and pleasure , is a The great tenant of nutritional psychiatry is that while you eat, you eat with the feeling that you are feeding your mental health, you are nourishing yourself, and you are eating with pleasure and joy.

Next on our list and on this one. It may surprise you, but it's been a big part of me feeling good and getting enough potassium and it's oven roasted potatoes and again I'm using that olive oil, maybe a little bit of garlic, maybe a little bit of some seasoning like oregano. or even a little. curry, but roasting potatoes in the oven is a really nice way to eat them for a number of reasons, potatoes have a bad casing but they are high in starch and if you cool them they are high in what's called resistant starch, which in It actually only diminishes the effect. controls blood sugar as well as a potassium-rich food, and potassium is one of those unheralded nutrients that I'm a big fan of, so potatoes along with bananas are a great place to get it , as well as white beans, below.

On our list of great foods you can eat for your mental health, these are some of my top eight foods, they're going to be sautéed greens and garlic and the reason why this is a really easy and quick way to get tons of nutritional greens is just there. Packed with nutrients Folate Fiber Vitamin C Vitamin K Vitamin A is a lot of nutrition in a few calories A cup of greens generally has between 10 and 30 calories, so sautéing them in olive oil with a little garlic is really a great way to incorporate more vegetables to your life, they also store very well in the refrigerator, add them to almost anything and you will improve the nutrient density and finally, it is a great food for your mental health and this is important because Often when people struggle with their mood or struggle with anxiety, what do people turn to?

What do we turn to? The natural antidepressant that exists and is reasonably inexpensive and ubiquitous is alcohol, and alcohol is a nice short-term effect if it relieves anxiety. immediately for people, so if you have an irritable or agitated type of depression, you know that alcohol can help you feel a little calmer and more in control, alcohol gives you a little bit of a euphoria and improves the mood initially, but he knows before the night goes wrong. So because of that, people when they're depressed, you know, they're looking for that, it's understandable and because of that, they often drink more than they should.

When people are struggling with their mood, alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, so it really is a headwind. you're struggling with your mood and that's why I switched from alcohol and encouraged people to try for a while to switch from alcohol to kombucha. Kombucha is a fermented tea, so it contains many interesting antioxidants. It's a fermented food, so again, we're getting a lot of live bacteria in our gut and, while kombucha does have a little bit of alcohol, if you have a true alcohol use disorder, make sure you look for a non-alcoholic kombucha, it's really very low, like point five percent, maybe one percent.

There are all kinds of different flavors and, again, I find it's a good trade-off because you're feeding your gut, you're having a good kind of deliciousness and you're trading something that can be really harmful to your mood and anxiety. So those are eight of my favorites. I hope you'll list some of your favorites in the comments below. Many people over the years have told me about certain foods and food categories. Nutrition affects their mental health and helps them make a real impact on their life. how they feel and I really hope this video helps you do that.

Please subscribe or be sure to share this with someone you care about who needs a little help fueling their mental health. Please check out some of the other content on On our website, a lot of these foods sometimes people ask about the cost, so we have a great brain food on a budget free download. Okay everyone, I'm Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Ramsey, until next time, keep fueling your mental health, thank you.